NAME¶
Inkscape - an SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) editing program.
SYNOPSIS¶
"inkscape [options] [filename ...]"
options:
-?, --help
--usage
-V, --version
-f, --file=FILENAME
-e, --export-png=FILENAME
-a, --export-area=x0:y0:x1:y1
-C, --export-area-page
-D, --export-area-drawing
--export-area-snap
-i, --export-id=ID
-j, --export-id-only
-t, --export-use-hints
-b, --export-background=COLOR
-y, --export-background-opacity=VALUE
-d, --export-dpi=DPI
-w, --export-width=WIDTH
-h, --export-height=HEIGHT
-P, --export-ps=FILENAME
-E, --export-eps=FILENAME
-A, --export-pdf=FILENAME
--export-latex
-T, --export-text-to-path
--export-ignore-filters
-l, --export-plain-svg=FILENAME
-p, --print=PRINTER
-I, --query-id=ID
-X, --query-x
-Y, --query-y
-W, --query-width
-H, --query-height
-S, --query-all
-x, --extension-directory
--verb-list
--verb=VERB-ID
--select=OBJECT-ID
--shell
-g, --with-gui
-z, --without-gui
--vacuum-defs
--g-fatal-warnings
DESCRIPTION¶
Inkscape is a GUI editor for
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format
drawing files, with capabilities similar to
Adobe Illustrator,
CorelDraw,
Xara Xtreme, etc. Inkscape features include versatile
shapes, bezier paths, freehand drawing, multi-line text, text on path, alpha
blending, arbitrary affine transforms, gradient and pattern fills, node
editing, many export and import formats including PNG and PDF, grouping,
layers, live clones, and a lot more. The interface is designed to be
comfortable and efficient for skilled users, while remaining conformant to
GNOME standards so that users familiar with other GNOME applications
can learn its interface rapidly.
SVG is a W3C standard XML format for 2D vector drawing. It allows
defining objects in the drawing using points, paths, and primitive shapes.
Colors, fonts, stroke width, and so forth are specified as `style' attributes
to these objects. The intent is that since SVG is a standard, and since its
files are text/xml, it will be possible to use SVG files in a sizeable number
of programs and for a wide range of uses.
Inkscape uses SVG as its native document format, and has the goal of
becoming the most fully compliant drawing program for SVG files available in
the Open Source community.
OPTIONS¶
- -?, --help
- Show help message
- -V, --version
- Show Inkscape version and build date.
- -a x0:y0:x1:y1, --export-area=x0:y0:x1:y1
- In PNG export, set the exported area in SVG user units (anonymous length
units normally used in Inkscape SVG). The default is to export the entire
document page. The point (0,0) is the lower-left corner.
- -C, --export-area-page
- In PNG, PDF, PS, and EPS export, exported area is the page. This is the
default for PNG, PDF, and PS, so you don't need to specify this unless you
are using --export-id to export a specific object. In EPS, however, this
is not the default; moreover, for EPS, the specification of the format
does not allow its bounding box to extend beyond its content. This means
that when --export-area-page is used with EPS export, the page bounding
box will be trimmed inwards to the bounding box of the content if it is
smaller.
- -D, --export-area-drawing
- In PNG, PDF, PS, and EPS export, exported area is the drawing (not page),
i.e. the bounding box of all objects of the document (or of the exported
object if --export-id is used). With this option, the exported image will
display all the visible objects of the document without margins or
cropping. This is the default export area for EPS. For PNG, it can be used
in combination with --export-use-hints.
- --export-area-snap
- For PNG export, snap the export area outwards to the nearest integer SVG
user unit (px) values. If you are using the default export resolution of
90 dpi and your graphics are pixel-snapped to minimize antialiasing, this
switch allows you to preserve this alignment even if you are exporting
some object's bounding box (with --export-id or --export-area-drawing)
which is itself not pixel-aligned.
- -b COLOR, --export-background=COLOR
- Background color of exported PNG. This may be any SVG supported color
string, for example "#ff007f" or "rgb(255, 0, 128)".
If not set, then the page color set in Inkscape in the Document Options
dialog will be used (stored in the pagecolor= attribute of
sodipodi:namedview).
- -d DPI, --export-dpi=DPI
- The resolution used for PNG export. It is also used for fallback
rasterization of filtered objects when exporting to PS, EPS, or PDF
(unless you specify --export-ignore-filters to suppress rasterization).
The default is 90 dpi, which corresponds to 1 SVG user unit (px, also
called "user unit") exporting to 1 bitmap pixel. This value
overrides the DPI hint if used with --export-use-hints.
- -e FILENAME, --export-png=FILENAME
- Specify the filename for PNG export. If it already exists, the file will
be overwritten without asking.
- -f FILENAME, --file=FILENAME
- Open specified document(s). Option string may be omitted, i.e. you can
list the filenames without -f.
- -g, --with-gui
- Try to use the GUI (on Unix, use the X server even if $DISPLAY is not
set).
- -h HEIGHT, --export-height=HEIGHT
- The height of generated bitmap in pixels. This value overrides the
--export-dpi setting (or the DPI hint if used with
--export-use-hints).
- -i ID, --export-id=ID
- For PNG, PS, EPS, and PDF export, the id attribute value of the object
that you want to export from the document; all other objects are not
exported. By default the exported area is the bounding box of the object;
you can override this using --export-area (PNG only) or
--export-area-page.
- -j, --export-id-only
- Only export to PNG the object whose id is given in --export-id. All other
objects are hidden and won't show in export even if they overlay the
exported object. Without --export-id, this option is ignored. For PDF
export, this is the default, so this option has no effect.
- -l, --export-plain-svg=FILENAME
- Export document(s) to plain SVG format, without sodipodi: or inkscape:
namespaces and without RDF metadata.
- -x, --extension-directory
- Lists the current extension directory that Inkscape is configured to use
and then exits. This is used for external extension to use the same
configuration as the original Inkscape installation.
- --verb-list
- Lists all the verbs that are available in Inkscape by ID. This ID can be
used in defining keymaps or menus. It can also be used with the --verb
command line option.
- --verb=VERB-ID, --select=OBJECT-ID
- These two options work together to provide some basic scripting for
Inkscape from the command line. They both can occur as many times as
needed on the command line and are executed in order on every document
that is specified.
The --verb command will execute a specific verb as if it was called from a
menu or button. Dialogs will appear if that is part of the verb. To get a
list of the verb IDs available, use the --verb-list command line option.
The --select command will cause objects that have the ID specified to be
selected. This allows various verbs to act upon them. To remove all the
selections use --verb=EditDeselect. The object IDs available are dependent
on the document specified to load.
- -p PRINTER, --print=PRINTER
- Print document(s) to the specified printer using `lpr -P PRINTER'.
Alternatively, use `| COMMAND' to specify a different command to pipe to,
or use `> FILENAME' to write the PostScript output to a file instead of
printing. Remember to do appropriate quoting for your shell, e.g.
inkscape --print='| ps2pdf - mydoc.pdf' mydoc.svg
- -t, --export-use-hints
- Use export filename and DPI hints stored in the exported object (only with
--export-id). These hints are set automatically when you export selection
from within Inkscape. So, for example, if you export a shape with
id="path231" as /home/me/shape.png at 300 dpi from document.svg
using Inkscape GUI, and save the document, then later you will be able to
reexport that shape to the same file with the same resolution simply with
inkscape -i path231 -t document.svg
If you use --export-dpi, --export-width, or --export-height with this
option, then the DPI hint will be ignored and the value from the command
line will be used. If you use --export-png with this option, then the
filename hint will be ignored and the filename from the command line will
be used.
- -w WIDTH, --export-width=WIDTH
- The width of generated bitmap in pixels. This value overrides the
--export-dpi setting (or the DPI hint if used with
--export-use-hints).
- -y VALUE,
--export-background-opacity=VALUE
- Opacity of the background of exported PNG. This may be a value either
between 0.0 and 1.0 (0.0 meaning full transparency, 1.0 full opacity) or
greater than 1 up to 255 (255 meaning full opacity). If not set and the -b
option is not used, then the page opacity set in Inkscape in the Document
Options dialog will be used (stored in the inkscape:pageopacity= attribute
of sodipodi:namedview). If not set but the -b option is used, then the
value of 255 (full opacity) will be used.
- -P FILENAME, --export-ps=FILENAME
- Export document(s) to PostScript format. Note that PostScript does not
support transparency, so any transparent objects in the original SVG will
be automatically rasterized. Used fonts are subset and embedded. The
default export area is page; you can set it to drawing by
--export-area-drawing. You can specify --export-id to export a single
object (all other are hidden); in that case export area is that object's
bounding box, but can be set to page by --export-area-page.
- -E FILENAME, --export-eps=FILENAME
- Export document(s) to Encapsulated PostScript format. Note that PostScript
does not support transparency, so any transparent objects in the original
SVG will be automatically rasterized. Used fonts are subset and embedded.
The default export area is drawing; you can set it to page, however see
--export-area-page for applicable limitation. You can specify --export-id
to export a single object (all other are hidden).
- -A FILENAME, --export-pdf=FILENAME
- Export document(s) to PDF format. This format preserves the transparency
in the original SVG. Used fonts are subset and embedded. The default
export area is page; you can set it to drawing by --export-area-drawing.
You can specify --export-id to export a single object (all other are
hidden); in that case export area is that object's bounding box, but can
be set to page by --export-area-page.
- --export-latex
- (for PS, EPS, and PDF export) Used for creating images for LaTeX
documents, where the image's text is typeset by LaTeX. When exporting to
PDF/PS/EPS format, this option splits the output into a PDF/PS/EPS file
(e.g. as specified by --export-pdf) and a LaTeX file. Text will not be
output in the PDF/PS/EPS file, but instead will appear in the LaTeX file.
This LaTeX file includes the PDF/PS/EPS. Inputting (\input{image.tex}) the
LaTeX file in your LaTeX document will show the image and all text will be
typeset by LaTeX. See the resulting LaTeX file for more information. Also
see GNUPlot's `epslatex' output terminal.
- -T, --export-text-to-path
- Convert text objects to paths on export, where applicable (for PS, EPS,
and PDF export).
- --export-ignore-filters
- Export filtered objects (e.g. those with blur) as vectors, ignoring the
filters (for PS, EPS, and PDF export). By default, all filtered objects
are rasterized at --export-dpi (default 90 dpi), preserving the
appearance.
- -I, --query-id
- Set the ID of the object whose dimensions are queried. If not set, query
options will return the dimensions of the drawing (i.e. all document
objects), not the page or viewbox
- -X, --query-x
- Query the X coordinate of the drawing or, if specified, of the object with
--query-id. The returned value is in px (SVG user units).
- -Y, --query-y
- Query the Y coordinate of the drawing or, if specified, of the object with
--query-id. The returned value is in px (SVG user units).
- -W, --query-width
- Query the width of the drawing or, if specified, of the object with
--query-id. The returned value is in px (SVG user units).
- -H, --query-height
- Query the height of the drawing or, if specified, of the object with
--query-id. The returned value is in px (SVG user units).
- -S, --query-all
- Prints a comma delimited listing of all objects in the SVG document with
IDs defined, along with their x, y, width, and height values.
- --shell
- With this parameter, Inkscape will enter an interactive command line shell
mode. In this mode, you type in commands at the prompt and Inkscape
executes them, without you having to run a new copy of Inkscape for each
command. This feature is mostly useful for scripting and server uses: it
adds no new capabilities but allows you to improve the speed and memory
requirements of any script that repeatedly calls Inkscape to perform
command line tasks (such as export or conversions). Each command in shell
mode must be a complete valid Inkscape command line but without the
Inkscape program name, for example "file.svg
--export-pdf=file.pdf".
- --vacuum-defs
- Remove all unused items from the <lt>defs<gt> section of the
SVG file. If this option is invoked in conjunction with
--export-plain-svg, only the exported file will be affected. If it is used
alone, the specified file will be modified in place.
- -z, --without-gui
- Do not open the GUI (on Unix, do not use X server); only process the files
from console. This is assumed for -p, -e, -l, and --vacuum-defs
options.
- --g-fatal-warnings
- This standard GTK option forces any warnings, usually harmless, to cause
Inkscape to abort (useful for debugging).
- --usage
- Display a brief usage message.
CONFIGURATION¶
The main configuration file is located in ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml; it
stores a variety of customization settings that you can change in Inkscape
(mostly in the Inkscape Preferences dialog). Also in the subdirectories there,
you can place your own:
$HOME/.config/inkscape/extensions/ - extension effects.
$HOME/.config/inkscape/icons/ - icons.
$HOME/.config/inkscape/keys/ - keyboard maps.
$HOME/.config/inkscape/templates/ - new file templates.
DIAGNOSTICS¶
The program returns zero on success or non-zero on failure.
A variety of error messages and warnings may be printed to STDERR or STDOUT. If
the program behaves erratically with a particular SVG file or crashes, it is
useful to look at this output for clues.
EXAMPLES¶
While obviously
Inkscape is primarily intended as a GUI application, it
can be used for doing SVG processing on the command line as well.
Open an SVG file in the GUI:
inkscape filename.svg
Print an SVG file from the command line:
inkscape filename.svg -p '| lpr'
Export an SVG file into PNG with the default resolution of 90dpi (one SVG user
unit translates to one bitmap pixel):
inkscape filename.svg --export-png=filename.png
Same, but force the PNG file to be 600x400 pixels:
inkscape filename.svg --export-png=filename.png -w600 -h400
Same, but export the drawing (bounding box of all objects), not the page:
inkscape filename.svg --export-png=filename.png --export-area-drawing
Export to PNG the object with id="text1555", using the output filename
and the resolution that were used for that object last time when it was
exported from the GUI:
inkscape filename.svg --export-id=text1555 --export-use-hints
Same, but use the default 90 dpi resolution, specify the filename, and snap the
exported area outwards to the nearest whole SVG user unit values (to preserve
pixel-alignment of objects and thus minimize aliasing):
inkscape filename.svg --export-id=text1555 --export-png=text.png --export-area-snap
Convert an Inkscape SVG document to plain SVG:
inkscape filename1.svg --export-plain-svg=filename2.svg
Convert an SVG document to EPS, converting all texts to paths:
inkscape filename.svg --export-eps=filename.eps --export-text-to-path
Query the width of the object with id="text1555":
inkscape filename.svg --query-width --query-id text1555
Duplicate the object with id="path1555", rotate the duplicate 90
degrees, save SVG, and quit:
inkscape filename.svg --select=path1555 --verb=EditDuplicate --verb=ObjectRotate90 --verb=FileSave --verb=FileClose
ENVIRONMENT¶
DISPLAY to get the default host and display number.
TMPDIR to set the default path of the directory to use for temporary
files. The directory must exist.
THEMES¶
To load different icons sets instead of the default
$PREFIX/share/inkscape/icons/icons.svg file, the
directory
$HOME/.config/inkscape/icons/ is used. Icons
are loaded by name (e.g.
fill_none.svg), or if not found, then from
icons.svg. If the icon is not loaded from either of those locations, it
falls back to the default system location.
The needed icons are loaded from SVG files by searching for the SVG id with the
matching icon name. (For example, to load the "fill_none" icon from
a file, the bounding box seen for SVG id "fill_none" is rendered as
the icon, whether it comes from
fill_none.svg or
icons.svg.)
OTHER INFO¶
The canonical place to find
Inkscape info is at
http://www.inkscape.org/.
The website has news, documentation, tutorials, examples, mailing list
archives, the latest released version of the program, bugs and feature
requests databases, forums, and more.
SEE ALSO¶
potrace, cairo,
rsvg(1), batik, ghostscript, pstoedit.
SVG compliance test suite:
http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/Test/
SVG validator:
http://jiggles.w3.org/svgvalidator/
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification W3C Recommendation 14
January 2003 <
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/>
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.2 Specification W3C Working Draft 13
November 2003 <
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG12/>
SVG 1.1/1.2/2.0 Requirements W3C Working Draft 22 April 2002
<
http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG2Reqs/>
Document Object Model (DOM): Level 2 Core Arnaud Le Hors et al
editors, W3C <
http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-Core/>
GUI NOTES¶
To learn Inkscape's GUI operation, read the tutorials in Help > Tutorials.
Apart from SVG, Inkscape can import (File > Import) most bitmap formats (PNG,
BMP, JPG, XPM, GIF, etc.), plain text (requires Perl), PS and EPS (requires
Ghostscript), PDF and AI format (AI version 9.0 or newer).
Inkscape exports 32-bit PNG images (File > Export) as well as AI, PS, EPS,
PDF, DXF, and several other formats via File > Save as.
Inkscape can use the pressure and tilt of a graphic tablet pen for width, angle,
and force of action of several tools, including the Calligraphic pen.
Inkscape includes a GUI front-end to the Potrace bitmap tracing engine
(
http://potrace.sf.net) which is embedded into Inkscape.
Inkscape can use external scripts (stdin-to-stdout filters) that are represented
by commands in the Extensions menu. A script can have a GUI dialog for setting
various parameters and can get the IDs of the selected objects on which to act
via the command line. Inkscape comes with an assortment of effects written in
Python.
KEYBINDINGS¶
To get a complete list of keyboard and mouse shortcuts, view doc/keys.html, or
use the Keys and Mouse command in Help menu.
BUGS¶
Many bugs are known; please refer to the website (inkscape.org) for reviewing
the reported ones and to report newly found issues. See also the Known Issues
section in the Release Notes for your version (file `NEWS').
AUTHORS¶
This codebase owes its existence to a large number of contributors throughout
its various incarnations. The following list is certainly incomplete, but
serves to recognize the many shoulders on which this application sits:
Maximilian Albert, Josh Andler, Tavmjong Bah, Pierre Barbry-Blot,
Jean-François Barraud, Bill Baxter, John Beard, John Bintz, Arpad Biro,
Nicholas Bishop, Joshua L. Blocher, Hanno Böck, Henrik Bohre, Boldewyn,
Daniel Borgmann, Bastien Bouclet, Gustav Broberg, Christopher Brown, Hans
Breuer, Marcus Brubaker, Luca Bruno, Nicu Buculei, Bulia Byak, Pierre Caclin,
Ian Caldwell, Gail Carmichael, Ed Catmur, Chema Celorio, Johan Ceuppens,
Zbigniew Chyla, Alexander Clausen, John Cliff, Kees Cook, Ben Cromwell, Robert
Crosbie, Jon Cruz, Aurélie De-Cooman, Milosz Derezynski, Daniel
Díaz, Bruno Dilly, Larry Doolittle, Tim Dwyer, Maxim V. Dziumanenko,
Johan Engelen, Miklos Erdelyi, Ulf Erikson, Noé Falzon, Frank Felfe,
Andrew Fitzsimon, Edward Flick, Marcin Floryan, Fred, Ben Fowler, Cedric Gemy,
Steren Giannini, Olivier Gondouin, Ted Gould, Toine de Greef, Michael
Grosberg, Bryce Harrington, Dale Harvey, Aurélio Adnauer Heckert, Carl
Hetherington, Jos Hirth, Hannes Hochreiner, Thomas Holder, Joel Holdsworth,
Alan Horkan, Karl Ove Hufthammer, Richard Hughes, Nathan Hurst, inductiveload,
Thomas Ingham, Jean-Olivier Irisson, Bob Jamison, jEsuSdA, Lauris Kaplinski,
Lynn Kerby, Niko Kiirala, James Kilfiger, Jason Kivlighn, Adrian Knoth,
Krzysztof Kosiński, Petr Kovar, Benoît Lavorata, Alex Leone,
Julien Leray, Raph Levien, Diederik van Lierop, Nicklas Lindgren, Vitaly
Lipatov, Ivan Louette, Pierre-Antoine Marc, Aurel-Aimé Marmion, Colin
Marquardt, Dmitry G. Mastrukov, Matiphas, Michael Meeks, Federico Mena,
MenTaLguY, Aubanel Monnier, Vincent Montagne, Tim Mooney, Derek P. Moore,
Peter Moulder, Jörg Müller, Yukihiro Nakai, Victor Navez,
Christian Neumair, Andreas Nilsson, Mitsuru Oka, Marten Owens, Alvin Penner,
Jon Phillips, Zdenko Podobny, Alexandre Prokoudine, Jean-René Reinhard,
Alexey Remizov, Frederic Rodrigo, Hugo Rodrigues, Juarez Rudsatz, Xavier Conde
Rueda, Felipe Corrêa da Silva Sanches, Christian Schaller, Marco
Scholten, Tom von Schwerdtner, Shivaken, Danilo Šegan, Michael Sloan,
John Smith, Boštjan Špetič, Aaron Spike, Kaushik
Sridharan, Ralf Stephan, Dariusz Stojek, Martin Sucha, ~suv, Pat Suwalski,
Adib Taraben, Hugh Tebby, Jonas Termeau, David Turner, Andre Twupack,
Aleksandar Urošević, Alex Valavanis, Lucas Vieites, Michael
Wybrow, Daniel Yacob, David Yip, Masatake Yamato
This man page was put together by Bryce Harrington
<brycehar@bryceharrington.com>.
HISTORY¶
The codebase that would become Inkscape began life in 1999 as the program Gill,
the GNOME Illustrator application, created by Raph Levien. The stated
objective for Gill was to eventually support all of SVG. Raph implemented the
PostScript bezier imaging model, including stroking and filling, line cap
style, line join style, text, etc. Raph's Gill page is at
http://www.levien.com/svg/. Work on Gill appears to have slowed or ceased in
2000.
The next incarnation of the codebase was to become the highly popular program
Sodipodi, led by Lauris Kaplinski. The codebase was turned into a powerful
illustration program over the course of several year's work, adding several
new features, multi-lingual support, porting to Windows and other operating
systems, and eliminating dependencies.
Inkscape was formed in 2003 by four active Sodipodi developers, Bryce
Harrington, MenTaLguY, Nathan Hurst, and Ted Gould, wanting to take a
different direction with the codebase in terms of focus on SVG compliance,
interface look-and-feel, and a desire to open development opportunities to
more participants. The project progressed rapidly, gaining a number of very
active contributors and features.
Much work in the early days of the project focused on code stabilization and
internationalization. The original renderer inherited from Sodipodi was laced
with a number of mathematical corner cases which led to unexpected crashes
when the program was pushed beyond routine uses; this renderer was replaced
with Livarot which, while not perfect either, was significantly less error
prone. The project also adopted a practice of committing code frequently, and
encouraging users to run developmental snapshots of the program; this helped
identify new bugs swiftly, and ensure it was easy for users to verify the
fixes. As a result, Inkscape releases have generally earned a reputation for
being robust and reliable.
Similarly, efforts were taken to internationalize and localize the interface,
which has helped the program gain contributors worldwide.
Inkscape has had a beneficial impact on the visual attractiveness of Open Source
in general, by providing a tool for creating and sharing icons, splash
screens, website art, and so on. In a way, despite being "just an drawing
program", Inkscape has played an important role in making Open Source
more visually stimulating to larger audiences.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE¶
Copyright (C) 1999–2010 by Authors.
Inkscape is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GPL.